


cypress to selmer

by witchelmm



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, But only for a bit, Dubcon at some points, Enemies to Lovers, Like suuuuuper dubcon, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slight supernatural realism, Southern Gothic, an unrealistic amount of cliques and stereotypes (it's for style ok), highkey murder, lowkey child abuse, minor characters die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2018-10-11 06:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10457874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchelmm/pseuds/witchelmm
Summary: No one those days was up for a good rebellion.Not that Percy really was, either, but the atmosphere of one would’ve worked wonders.Maybe he didn’t need a rebellion. Maybe he just needed something. A cosmic event. A natural disaster. The apocalypse. Anything would do, really.Nothing ever happened in Selmer.





	1. percy

No one those days was up for a good rebellion.

Not that Percy really was, either, but the atmosphere of one would’ve worked wonders.

Maybe he didn’t need a rebellion. Maybe he just needed _something_. A cosmic event. A natural disaster. The apocalypse. Anything would do, really.

Nothing ever happened in Selmer.

Percy was sprawled on the bed of Annabeth Chase, the covers a wreck underneath him. Annabeth was on the windowsill, her back to the open air, bare knees pulled up under her chin; frayed, honey-blonde hair spilling over her shoulders.

It was August. The entire town was static and miserable.

Percy was glad Annabeth’s room was too high up for mosquitoes. The lush garden some feet beneath her window would’ve given them both a number of diseases. The distance from the ground was one of the multiple reasons that Percy wasn’t in his own home.

Annabeth’s room wasn’t high enough up to escape the repetition of summer, though.

Every August day in southern Virginia seemed to go the same way—you woke up to someone’s rooster crowing, or someone’s tractor starting. You were never quite sure whose it was. If you were lucky, you slept through it.

Then you waited to go to work, or you went right outside to work, or you worked at home, or you started into your lull, which lasted until you found something to do that kept you from sweating your life force into the dirt.

After three had passed, you could begin to do normal, necessary things, if you werewilling, but most weren’t, as there was an awful feeling to beginning a day so late.

When night fell, it was expected and respected that you would feign past productivity and reward yourself with typical summer dusk comforts. Although Percy’s home didn’t partake in these, he still understood them, because everyone did.

What changed August was going back to school. The atmosphere of the town permeated the walls of Selmer High School; the halls were redolent with superstition. Everyone inside the school, regardless of whether the air could be choked on within the building or not, would grow up to be just like everyone outside it.

Sure, everyone still got roused by the sound of someone else’s phantom rooster-slash-tractor, but afterward you went back to sleep. If you were lucky, you had already slept through it.

Then—and Percy wasn’t sure if this was just for him, although he suspected it was—you got to school and escaped.

Percy didn’t like school. In fact, he considered himself (or perhaps he didn’t consider himself. Maybe other people considered him this, but it was hard to tell, regardless) in the broad, largely ignored fraction of kids who really couldn’t stand school at all, but had nothing better to do, so they didn’t really try and it went nowhere and nothing was ever going to fix it but at least he didn’t have to _think_ and—

—School was starting soon, essentially. It hadn’t left Percy’s brain.

—

Every year on the twenty-ninth of August, Annabeth and Percy went to the dollar store to buy school supplies.

Actually, they only bought stuff for Percy. Annabeth’s things had come in the mail from a retail company somewhere in east Asia a week before.

There really wasn’t much variety left, but it wasn’t like Percy was picky. He didn’t even print out the school list anymore. He entered with five dollars and left with one, some pencils, a spiral notebook and a pack of gum.

Annabeth silently wrestled a wrapped rectangle of gum out of Percy’s palm and took off the cover in an easy, one-handed motion. However, she seemed to regret stealing it once it was in her mouth. “What’s this shit?”

Percy watched, amused. “Cinnamon.”

“Fucking _cinnamon_ , man.” Annabeth had to have been aware that every time Percy bought confectionaries, they would be either a blue-centric flavor out of tradition, and when that was not available, Percy’s actual favorite flavor: cinnamon. Annabeth happened to hate it. But she continued to chew for a few moments, seeming angrier than Percy thought she had the right to be. He kept watching. Finally, she asked, “Do you want this? I don’t want to waste it.”

That was one thing Percy liked about Annabeth Chase: she could afford to throw things away and chose not to do it anyway.

Percy nodded. Annabeth spit the gum onto the back of her hand, as dry as she could, and gave it to Percy without question or ceremony. Percy appreciated that greatly.


	2. jason

Jason’s cheek was pressed into Percy’s shoulder.

“Yeah, good,” Percy said, or laughed. “Actually, get your left leg a little… yeah, yeah. Good.” He released Jason, hands slipping down to catch Jason’s wrists. Jason opened his mouth to speak, which Percy predicted and intercepted, saying, “I’m not gonna let go.”

They were thirteen and fourteen, respectively; it was late July when there was nothing better to do in those Hell-hot scraps of southern Virginia, and Percy found it ridiculous that Jason didn’t know how to skate. Jason wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to learn how to use a skateboard. (Ride it? _Drive_ it? He didn’t know.)

He could never say no to Percy, though.

Jason had fallen for Percy Jackson the way someone got pushed off of a pier. 

You have no idea it’s going to happen, although you have a sense of uneasiness, being up on that pier with a disreputable person who is completely capable of pushing you off said pier. You near the edge, thinking, _I’m not going to fall off this pier; I’ve never been pushed off a pier before._ Then life fucks you over and you are pushed off the pier. And, often, you don’t notice you’ve been pushed off the pier until you start struggling underwater; it happens so fast.

And, at that point, you have to try not to drown.

An overly extensive metaphor. But Jason had a lot of time to think about it. And it fit. He guessed it was a semi-strange thing to be thinking about when he was on a skateboard, being guided down a wrecked asphalt hill between a hideous landfill and a gorgeous forest.

Everything in Selmer was either awful, or beautiful, or both.

Jason would not attempt to categorize Percy Jackson.

Actually, he would, because Jason attempted to categorize everything. He liked it that way—organized, efficient, and simple.

Percy was in a t-shirt adorned with faded print, abused to the point of cloud-level softness. He sported a rip in his jeans over the scab on his knee, the tear stained with blood around the frayed edges as if to boast its own authenticity. He had a greenish-yellow bruise on his neck, and a purple one on his cheekbone. Jason suspected but had not confirmed the cause of either one. 

Nope. He wasn’t categorizing. He was just staring. Again. 

Percy’s hands crept to Jason’s shoulders as he stopped the board, the worn front of a tennis shoe bringing it to a gravelly halt.

Jason was pretty sure Percy was about to kiss him. His hand strayed to Percy’s hip, which he could’ve blamed on steadying himself, but Percy said, “It’s dark,” which meant he knew.

“Yeah.” Jason didn’t need to look up at the sky. “Going home?”

Percy shrugged the question off one shoulder and onto the other. “If I have to.”

Jason felt warm with the anticipation of a kiss; it had only happened once before. He strove beneath the water all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't expect an update until i finish etincelles k


	3. piper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok etincelles stuff coming soon (i'm not dead)

“He looks like—D’you think he gets beat?”

The previous question had been asked by a curious Lacy Ammins that sat on top of one of the sinks in the girls’ locker room. She was referring to the current object of conversation, Percy Jackson, that had been brought up in cheer team gossip because he was friends with the friend of so-and-so’s ex-girlfriend; he had been in association with the breakup. 

Piper didn’t know much about him. As far as she knew, nobody really did, except his friend that was friends with so-and-so’s ex-girlfriend. Piper didn’t know much about her, either, although she was a bit more accessible.

On the other side of Piper, Drew leaned closer to the mirror above their shared sink. She carefully twisted an exposed sports bra strap so that it lay flat against her golden collarbone. “I don’t know. Doesn’t everyone get beat?”

Lacy shrugged. “He seems a little old for it. If you ask me.”

Drew also shrugged, somehow superior, with one shoulder. “I didn’t.” She stepped back, giving a tiny twirl to check the pleatedness of her pleated skirt. “You’re just talking like that ’cause you don’t know anything about him.”

“We could talk about someone else,” Piper suggested. She had bit back a razor-sharp, _No one knows anything about him, Drew._ “Or something that _matters_.” She didn’t mean to sound condescending, but it seemed like the longer she stayed around her crowd, the more so she seemed. Drew never seemed to get offended, though. She was a complete bitch, but she had a thick skin, and she cared about the other girls.

Drew scrunched up her nose. “Nah. I don’t mind.” (Drew obviously didn’t care that Piper _did_ mind.) “And he’s cute. Ish. Enough, anyway. We could talk about that.”

“Seven,” Lacy offered, testing the waters.

Drew laughed, but it didn’t sound very humorous. “Point nine.”

Piper wasn’t even sure she could remember what Percy Jackson looked like. Dark hair? Definitely. Maybe? She really couldn’t make herself care. Desperate to change the subject from something she gave absolutely no shits about to something she gave almost one percent of a shit about, she asked Lacy, “What’d you say about him getting beat?”

—

Piper knew for a fact that Drew Tanaka would never be caught dead outside her house in an orange t-shirt and SpongeBob boxers. But she was sitting on the couch in her living room like that, sans shame.

Piper, though, had she not known that Drew would disapprove, would surely go outside in her current outfit—a Hello Kitty tank top and a pair of cheer shorts.

Lacy was sitting behind Piper, continuously unbraiding and rebraiding sections of her hair. Valentina sat on the arm of the couch, despite Drew’s father despising it (he was not present) and unsuccessfully tried a few times to land cheez-its into Piper’s mouth.

Drew cleared her throat. Attention was to be on her immediately.

“Do you know what happened to me today?”

No one said anything. Valentina, with a hearty mouth of cheez-its, waved her hand in an _‘elaborate, please’_ motion.

Drew looked pleased to have been prompted. “I talked to Jason Grace.”

Lacy promptly choked on her own spit. Piper screwed up Lacy’s latest braid by turning around to ask if she was okay.

“Yeah, I’ll start over,” Lacy muttered, like she only half-cared, but mostly had turned around to listen to Drew.

“Yeah,” Drew said. “He was nice, I guess. Kinda boring.”

Piper didn’t want to say she had expected this, because she could tell that Drew had had her hopes up to have someone else to analyze. She kept quiet as Valentina asked questions. Lacy had let go of Piper’s hair to text, and Piper’s phone began to buzz anxiously in her pocket as the five other girls in the cheer group chat undoubtedly gave their opinions.

“Piper,” Drew said. She had Piper’s attention. She made a complicated series of hums and gestures.

“Oh, fuck no.”

Drew was pouting. “I’m serious!”

Piper laughed, but not because anything was funny. “I’m fucking serious, too. Not gonna happen.”

“He doesn’t have to know you don’t mean it.”

Valentina was watching the conversation go back and forth, but it was impossible to tell whose side she was on. Lacy had gone back to texting, obviously detailing the conversation to interconnected team-group members currently not present.

Piper asked, “Then what’s the point?”

“The _point_ is fucking. Him. _Up_ , Piper. Rite of passage.”

“Come on. That only works for people who care. Which is _neither of us_. And I’m your cousin—I thought I got a pass!”

Drew shrugged. “You could get him to care. No passes.”

Valentina added, “He has face to save.”

Piper snorted. “Barely.”

Drew half-agreed, “It’d be a challenge.”

“But I’ve never done it before.”

“So, you’re scared?”

“Fuck off.”

“Sweetie.”

“Fucking _fine_.”

Lacy clapped, innocent and joyful in the prospect of entertainment. She didn’t mean to offend, but Valentina threw a cheez-it at her, anyway. It hit Lacy’s cheek and fell into Piper’s lap. Like a fucking omen.

Piper said, “It’s your fault if he turns out to be a serial killer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should i make this piper/annabeth, too? i could super easily write them in. like. almost too easily.


	4. percy

Both Percy and Annabeth hated their stepparents; it was among the main pillars of their friendship. But Percy wasn’t sure if he was supposed to appreciate that Annabeth easily admitted that he had it worse.

Gabriel Ugliano had broken the refrigerator at some point. In the process, he had also ruined the eggs and milk. At one in the morning, he had woken up (God knew when he had fallen asleep) and announced this fact to the previously unconscious Jackson household. He had then galumphed up the stairs, drove his shoulder so hard into Percy’s door that the entire tiny house seemed to shake, and told Percy that he expected replacements before breakfast.  
Luckily, Gabe was tired-drunk, not violent-drunk, as when a confused, half-asleep Percy mumbled, _“Fucking buy them yourself,”_ Gabe didn’t notice; he was already halfway to his bedroom.  
Percy sat up and attempted to wipe drool from his mouth and sweat from his entire person. The house didn’t have air conditioning. At least the weather was finally cooling off.  
—

Fridge: fixed. Groceries: purchased. Percy: bored.  
It was two twenty-four AM.  
Annabeth’s house was only one walk through the backwood away, although it could be considered dangerous at night. Not because of the animals. They were always around, and they could always catch up to you, dark or not.

Nah, Percy was more worried about other kids. Typically, if he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) sleep, he’d go to the skatepark, because no one was ever there after eleven. (And honestly, _park_ was an affectionate word for the place. It was a shitty, cracked backlot, overgrown in some parts and stripped bare in others. A pile of rusty metal curled like apple skins lay in one corner, collecting vines and secrets and diseases. The fence, choked by Christmas-green ivy, only surrounded three sides of the lot, and it was broken down even there. Some generously-dubbed makeshift halfpipes populated the wasteland, sporting mysterious splotches that were supposedly paint in varying shades of red and brown.)

But tonight—or morning—for reasons unknown—or unexplainable—Percy was going to see—or talk to—Annabeth. Sometimes he just needed to _talk_. Teenage angst and all that bullshit.

Someone laughed, farther along in the darkness. He froze.

Then a girl—obviously a girl—said something, and the laugh came again. Percy _knew_ that laugh, but only partially. Just something about it.

A flash of light shot through the trees, small but piercing, probably the flashlight on a phone. Percy ducked behind a tree.

Call him paranoid, but every single time he’d run into someone else in the woods, it was a dick from his school (or a group of them), most likely drunk (or high), who found Percy’s abnormalities some weird form of live entertainment. And Percy didn’t really want to deal with that shit just then.

_“I’m telling you, they’d kill me.”_

_“Kill you for what, hanging out with a girl?”_ That was the girl, and she was laughing, too.

That _laugh_ again. _“Yeah, pretty much.”_

Percy cut to the side, the opposite way of the light. It would take longer, but the detour would be worth it. He was ninety percent sure there were mood-altering substances involved with that couple and he did not want to accidentally step in it.

_“It’s not hunting season, is it?”_


	5. annabeth

Annabeth Chase was not what anyone thought she was.

She was foolproof, and she knew it, because no matter if they cracked down on Annabeth, Declassified, she could still die with the knowledge that she made whatever she cared to do look easy. So damn _easy_.

Not that it was. And not that she actually cared to do very many things. When you have to try so hard it hurts, you tend to conserve your energy.

Just two hours ago she’d been at the skatepark (park, ha) with Percy; their aliveness hadn’t really mattered. Now she was sticking little pearl needles through her ears and making sure her skirt’s uneven hem didn’t sabotage her father’s career.

Annabeth stood back and studied her reflection. She looked pretty, she knew that. She’d gone for faint, modest. Fanciful, sensible. The Graying Professor’s Golden Daughter.

Her father was counting on her. She could play a Chase estate amenity if it meant a sleek, painless publishing deal. A series of commands inside a supercomputer. _Perfect_. Just for three hours.

She stopped in the kitchen for water before braving it out into the blazing backyard. She wished Percy was there, even if he would make himself look like an idiot. She even kind of wished for her stepbrothers. They were nowhere to be seen—the old, academic kind wouldn’t be charmed by all-American boys throwing baseballs through historically significant windows. Frederick’s best bet was his bright (if uncaring) daughter, so she took her usual place as his biggest asset.

Now she was holding a plate of shortbread bites and strawberry slices and wishing she’d been able to take a sick day.

There were no sick days, not in the University that Never Slept, not in this world. There was not a single person in Annabeth’s line of vision who had missed work in the last twenty-five thousand years.

A professor/historian/author from Oxford/Harvard/Aber took shortbread from Annabeth’s tray. He didn’t smile at her, but that was because he didn’t even look. At least these men weren’t sleazy, like the husbands of the women who attended her stepmother’s book club. 

She wondered if her father would be like that if he went to some other woman’s book club party. She wondered if she’d grow up to be the type of woman to host a book club.

Percy’d laugh at her for that.

You know, maybe she _would_ host a book club. And she’d go to the other women’s books clubs on the same street and she’d make Percy come to the dinner parties with her. Making friends.

_Make friends, damn it, Annabeth!_

That had been her stepmother, one-point-one days before. She’d gotten tired of Annabeth’s ghost on the third floor.

She had friends—well, she had _friend_. But whatever, right?

(She was tired, too.)


	6. jason

Jason didn’t trust the town of Selmer.

Back when he hadn’t lived inside of a box, Jason’s home had been a classy chromed penthouse younger than he was, with windows that blinked like eyes at night overlooking the Patapsco. It was strange enough for his sister and ordinary enough for him which meant they were both happy which meant their mother was happy which meant it was a forever home. For then, at least.

They had a cat. Her name was Ellen DeGeneres. She was white-gray like everything else in the house and she liked his sister Thalia more than him. She was in Jason’s dreams last night, the cat. Really, the important part was that she’d been lying on the splintered dashboard of matte black BMW, tail brushing the bloodied cheek of one Beryl Grace. But Jason had just reached from his place in the passenger seat to stroke the velvet fur under her chin, behind her ears. He missed that cat.

And he ignored his mother, even when she tried to reach for his hand.

—

Jason woke on the first day of school feeling like he really hadn’t yet and he would have to try again when he realized he was still dreaming. That had been happening a lot lately. He poured out twenty-five Frosted Mini Wheats, which he ate mainly because they tasted like childhood instead of something he actually wanted to put into his body, not that he cared, and poured over one cup of milk.

The handle of his spoon was cold in his right hand. He switched it to his left. He drank the milk from the bowl because he couldn’t pour it out and grabbed his bag from his chair.

Back when he hadn’t lived inside of a box, breakfast came down from heaven in a warm paper bag, like rations from some kind of understanding totalitarian ruler. Everything came delivered in warm paper or cardboard actually; his mother could never cook. They didn’t blame her because it was their life and they’d never known anything different.

Blistering hot chocolate in a cup with a cardstock belt, ambiguously toasted bread products. On alone days, blue ceramics, Frosted Mini Wheats.  
Jason tied his shoes on the front porch, because this was rural Virginia. It was sunny and Hellish, humid as regret.

Everything smelled like plants that could kill him, constrict his throat and all that, if too many of them entered his body.

God, was Jason made for Baltimore.

—

The abandoned house across the street messed with his head: a big, wood-and-stone monster, probably haunted, definitely unsafe. He tried not to look at it, in all honestly.

But someone was sitting on the porch that morning, the first time Jason had ever seen anyone doing so.

Jason didn’t know why everyone hated the house. Maybe someone had been murdered there, maybe it was where Jesus had been born. Sometimes kids dared each other to touch it, like Boo Radley lived there or something.

Jason’d touched it once. It was stupid.

Anyway. There was still someone sitting on the porch.

She wore a powder blue sundress, her milky blonde hair braided over her shoulder, fuzzy around her face like a halo because she’d slept in it.

She smiled. He ran.

Jason woke up.


	7. percy

Percy had hated school back in sixth-seventh-eighth grade, and everyone said it would get better.

It didn’t. The classes became longer, started earlier. The kids got more bitter and less sociable. 

Percy got bored.

_Er_.

Whatever. It wasn’t like he spent his life doing anything else, anyway. And he preferred every season to summer.

His shirt smelled like smoke and he knew it, but it wasn’t his fault. His skateboard was trapped with Annabeth’s too-opaque water bottle in the administration office. (They’d been confiscated at the same time.)

Attendance. Syllabi. There was a kid in the front row in lotus position. Percy cocked his head.

He had orchestra next. Thank God. He didn’t think he could stand that room for fifteen more minutes; ten, five. The chair creaked too much to move.

Orchestra (‘band’ if you didn’t have a stick up your ass) was synonymous with _movement_ , which was so against the entirety of the American educational institution that Percy was surprised it had survived for that long.

But he was immeasurably glad it stayed.

—

Annabeth crouched over her case in the corner of the band storage closet, which was always crammed with people and instruments and conversations at the beginning of every rehearsal, rosining her bow, looking at her phone at the same time.  
Percy combed the cello rack. Someone else had his instrument—well, not his instrument. The school’s instrument that he always used. _Always_.  
“Where’s my cello?”  
No one answered but Annabeth. She said, “You don’t have a cello.”  
“Yeah, sphincter, I know. Where’s my cello?”  
Someone, nameless, mouth thick with gum, from the other side of the room: “Abby has it.”  
“Why doesn’t she have _her_ cello?”  
Abby had entered the room. “Because I left it at home.”  
The girl by Abby’s side said, “Why’d you take it home?”  
“I needed it. Over the summer.”  
Percy: “That doesn’t mean you can just take mine.”  
Abby: “Well, it’s not even yours, and I’m first chair, so—”  
“—Christ, what are you, a violin?”  
Carly, principal violin: “Hey, okay, _rude_ —”  
Annabeth: “—Percy, just use the spare.”  
So Percy used the spare.

Mrs. Gauthier was a middle-aged woman with a heinous blonde and black dye job, a sort of pinched-looking face, and a body the shape of a water balloon. She was one of the most terrifying people Percy knew, and one of the only terrifying people he knew that he liked.  
It was the first rehearsal of the year; Gauthier tapped a paper to the whiteboard and pointed to it with an intensity that suggested suspicion of a felony.

“Pit auditions,” she said. “Thursday and Friday at three. Be there. We have solo options and principal solos.”

A skinny arm shot into the air from the violin section, a freshman named Sarah who was undeniably good at her instrument but universally regarded as annoying. She didn’t wait to be called on before she asked, “Is there a piano slot?”  
“We’re using a track.”  
Sarah looked pouty, but also sort of martyred. At least everyone knew she played piano now.  
Percy cast his eyes over the second violins to the firsts, meeting Annabeth’s eyes. She had already been looking at him, so it was decided: they were auditioning for pit.  
Which meant he had to ask _the question_.  
He tentatively raised his hand.

“Percy.”  
“Should I audition on cello or viola?”

Ashleigh, principal viola, snorted audibly.  
“Let me get a headcount.” Gauthier looked at the orchestra expectantly, waiting for hands to be raised.

Four violins. One other cello, excluding Percy. Two violas. One bass.  
Gauthier decided: “Cello.” Third year playing pit, third year playing _cello_.  
He sighed. “Gotcha.”


	8. piper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm hoping to catch up to real-time sometime soon. so, that's kinda cool.

_Boyfriend. Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend boyfriend boyfriendboyfriendboyfriend._

No matter how many times she thought it, read it, wrote it, or rolled the words around on her tongue like a cough drop, they still felt… _weird_.  
_Jason Grace is my…_

…boyfriend.  
She wouldn’t be telling the truth if she said the words didn’t give her a small thrill; they signified some of the perverse sort of owner-and-ownedness that young girls so desperately wanted.  
It had happened a few hours before.

Jason had hung out with her in her bedroom (her father was absent and Jane didn’t care enough about Piper’s wellbeing to stop her from bringing _anyone_ into the house, much less a clean cut high schooler), Jason had kissed her and shifted her around on his lap like a marble in a palm.He said she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and asked if she wanted to be his girlfriend.Jason kissed her again—he kissed too calmly but Piper didn’t say anything—then he pulled her shirt up over her head, and then he’d gotten a call from someone he didn’t specify and left.

She texted Drew immediately: _i did it_.

Drew: _a bridge that doesnt look like youre spasming?_

Piper: _ha no. jason._

_not what i meant!!_

_we’re dating_.

Drew just sent a thumbs-up emoji.

Piper flopped back on her bed, suddenly very tired.


	9. jason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had an order for chapters but uhhh fuck that right

The poster read:

**DRAMA AUDITIONS!!!!!**

**9/13 and 9/14, 2:30-4:30 PM in THE AUDITORIUM**

**CONTACT MRS. FRAZIER:** [ _embfrazier@scps.com_ ](mailto:emilyfrazier@spsc.com)

**OR go to room 13AA during ADVISORY or LUNCH C for information!**

**SIGN UP BELOW**

Jason stared. Someone hit his shoulder and didn’t apologize as they kept up a speeding pace down the hallway. Jason swayed, not really noticing, like a kelp forest, eyes still trained on the poster.

September thirteenth and fourteenth were next Thursday and Friday. It was Thursday then, the sixth. Third day of school. Everything was just as it should’ve been, fluid trapped in glass.

Except this.

Jason had only moved to Selmer last year, a few months into school, after the yearly musical was already seventy percent underway. So, obviously Jason hadn’t been a part of it.

Being back for the beginning of the year this time, being essentially on equal footing with everyone else, that was great.

But _this_!

Oh, this was the worst.

As soon as Jason had seen that word (auditions), his heart had sped up.

“Hey, what’cha lookin’ at?” Piper bumped shoulders with him, making part of his vision fracture. Everything looked like it was in some sort of weird sepia filter.

“Poster,” Jason said. He was pretty sure he was supposed to kiss Piper or something, but the opportunity had kind of passed. And, besides, PDA just wasn’t his thing.

“Well, I can see that, dummy. Are you gonna try out?”

One thing Jason had learned: Piper at school was very different from Piper at home. Piper at school was a lot… happier. Or at least brighter. Jason preferred at-home Piper; that was where she didn’t hurt his eyes.

Don’t get him wrong—Jason always really, really liked Piper. He could just feel her discomfort (and overcompensation) at school, and it made him uncomfortable, too. Piper-at-school wore her cheer uniform on Friday, even though she’d told Jason she hated how the sleeves fit, and the uniforms were optional. Piper-at-home had lots of interesting opinions about which leafy greens were better (environmentally, but mostly culinarily) and was one of the best skateboarders Jason had ever met. Piper at school called him _dummy_ and was always chewing gum. Enough said.

But he wouldn’t call her out on it. It wasn’t like Jason was exactly himself at school, either.

Case in point, he answered Piper’s question with, “Absolutely not.”

Piper bounced forward on her feet, bounced back. “Why?”

“Are you kidding? I have, like, absolutely no artistic talent. At all.”

“Ooh, tragic.”

“You should, though. Audition. You sing really well.”

“Okay, but have you _seen_ me dance?”

“I wish.”

They both started laughing. Jason really, _really_ liked Piper. Sure, they’d only been together a couple of weeks, but Jason doubted it would’ve even lasted that long if they hadn’t gotten along so well.

“I’ve gotta get to English,” Piper said. “Where are you supposed to be?”

“I don’t know.”

Piper laughed a little, just a confused little exhale. “Do you have your schedule?”

“I…” Jason patted his pockets. Where had he put his stuff? He finally remembered that he’d put his schedule in his phone. “Yeah, one second.”

“Looks like you need to go upstairs.”

“How? God, the rooms are all out of order.”

Piper grinned. “I know.”

“Thanks.” Jason turned to go, but Piper caught his arm.

“Hey,” she said. She pushed up onto her toes and put her mouth, lips closed, to Jason’s for a few seconds. Jason was aware of every single thing, person, and microbe in the corridor.

When Jason didn’t say anything for a solid five seconds, Piper swallowed and said, “I will… see you after school.”


	10. percy

**VIOLIN:**

**1) Annabeth Chase**

**2) Sarah Bonner**

**3) Jana Carrigan**

**4) Katherine Groff**

**VIOLA:**

**1) Mary Conover**

**2) Solomon Green**

**CELLO:**

**1) Abigail Schmidt**

**2) Percy Jackson**

**BASS:**

**Connor Davies**

And below that were listed the band instruments, but Percy didn’t care so much about them. Annabeth was first chair violin, as usual for pit, because Carly never auditioned, and Percy was both the second-best and worst cello. If only he’d been able to go for viola.

Actual cast auditions were Thursday and Friday—it was Monday then—and the first practice was the Wednesday after.

Percy wasn’t sure how psyched he was about it, really. Abby had already texted him that she needed him to sit in on cast rehearsals—usually that was first chair’s job, but Abby _always_ had work—so now he had to slog through that twice a week.

(Percy didn’t really like theater kids. They were… loud.)

The problem, too, was that Abby was a good student, so she’d expect Percy’s notes. So he couldn’t even skip.

But at least Annabeth would be there.

Two girls passed behind him, and Percy caught some of their conversation—seriously? People were already talking about homecoming? What was there to _talk_ about—you stood, uncomfortable, in a bedazzled school gym for a few hours and rotted. Or… or got high in the bathroom, or something.

On the other side of the auditorium doors, about twenty feet away, was the audition poster, which had had people stopping to check it quickly periodically throughout the day, but now just had one person, staring at it almost ruefully.

That person was Jason Grace.

Percy watched, still, interested, enraptured, as Jason continued to look at the poster, his hands in his pockets, face looking like it physically pained him to be near. Then, Percy watched as Jason got out his phone, snapped a photo of the poster, put his phone back in his pocket, and walked away.

From the poster—he walked away from the poster, not Percy. He actually walked _towards_ Percy.

But of course he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look.

When Jason had passed, Percy turned to watch him go, and pressed his back to the cold brick wall behind him.

What was _that_? Since when was Jason back into theater—back into _anything_ , actually?

Percy felt himself quietly begin to feel like he had at the beginning of last year, before he realized that Jason had essentially died when he moved to Selmer. Just a little, nagging bit of the BioFreeze feeling in the bottom of his stomach. 

Maybe—just maybe.

Maybe.


End file.
